Kevin Heslop has an interesting prose style, so during the easy days of summer I asked him if he would like to take over my job of writing the summaries of our open mics. Well in those lazy, hazy days of summer he thought yes that would be fun and agreed.

Kevin didn’t really realize what he was in for until it all came down on him at once. All right after that first Sept. 4th open mic, right when he was going to write his first summary.

For starters, there was the stress of registration for his first full year at Western (English and philosophy), and immediately his first classes. And then everything else he had jumped into. Here’s an email to me Wednesday: “Got a poem into the paper at western today, and I've got two articles going into tomorrows and thursdays editions. And that's on top of class hours and homework (just got back from a 3 hour class this evening). So…” And he’ll be a drummer in the university jazz band. And then there’s soccer. And not to forget his constant discharge of poems, which, though rapid, still takes time.

So I suggested, to Kevin’s relief, that he skip this first summary. I don’t want to be the cause of some 21-year-old guy having a heart attack. Assuming that’s possible.

So no Heslop summary until after our second open mic of the season, October 2nd, featuring Jan Figurski.

However, any day now we have a batch of videos coming out, taken at last week's open mic. Erik Martinez Richards, our esteemed videographer, is working on them as we speak. As with Kevin, this is Erik’s first shot at his new job for the open mic. It’s his on-the-job training, as he has never done this kind of fussy work before, only your normal vacation shots, etc. But his learning curve is steep, as you’ll see.